I Googled, and found others have asked the same question. I found a debate about it on snopes.com. The CA DMV doesn’t say so. But a friend was outraged when a hotel parking lot charged him to park, even though he has handicapped license plates.
I thought handicapped parking places were intended for convenience – they’re close to entrances – but that there isn’t any additional burden on facility operators to make such parking free of charge. What’s the skinny?
Public parking is free or time limits can be ignored. Hotel parking is private.
It depends. Some city garages will not charge some will. Private can charge if they want. If there is a parking meter you donot have to feed it and most parking control officers will not worry about the time limit.
It’s free if they park at a meter. Occasionally, the local news stations will do a report on able-bodied people abusing this and other disabled parking.
The City of Sacramento is pretty succinct about it: http://www.cityofsacramento.org/transportation/parking/onstreetplacard.html
Thank’ee, everyone, especially IAmNotSpartacus, for the answers and for the link. I’m betting that Sacramento’s rules are pretty much the same here in San Diego. Mil milion gracias!